Geospatial Thinking and Sense of Place: The Mediating Role of Creativity

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript needs minor revision and would be strengthened if the following points are addressed:

1-    Providing more literature review related to Geospatial Thinking and Sense of Place.

2-    Providing more detailed information on the Innovative Behavior Scale and Geospatial Thinking Test Questionnaire.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer1:

Thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript, we appreciate all reviewers very much for their positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Geospatial Thinking and Sense of Place: The Mediating Role of Creativity” (Manuscript ID: sustainability-2079589). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. All the revisions have been addressed in the Reply followed and highlighted in the manuscript with yellow background. We hope the revised manuscript can be considered acceptable.

Reply to the comments of Reviewer 1

Comments:

Providing more literature review related to Geospatial Thinking and Sense of Place.

Reply:

We gratefully appreciate for your valuable suggestions. We have added some literatures about geospatial thinking (see line 114-118;120-122). And we added content related to sense of place (see line 135-137;139-141). Also, some literatures have been added to explain the relationship between geospatial thinking and sense of place (see line 170-172).

Comments:

Providing more detailed information on the Innovative Behavior Scale and Geospatial Thinking Test Questionnaire.

Reply:

We thank you for pointing out this issue. We have added contents to the Innovative Behavior Scale and Geospatial Thinking Test Questionnaire based on your comments (see line 262-264;273-279).

Thanks again！

Reviewer 2 Report

The topic raised in the framework of the research for which the paper entitled "Geospatial Thinking and Sense of Place: The Mediating Role of Creativity" was sent is relevant and important. In my opinion, journal Sustainability is thematically consistent with the content of the submitted paper and the study can be considered for publication after minor adjustments.

It seems necessary to emphasize the importance of the subject for Sustainability. While it is understandable why the topics covered are important to Sustainability, this is not clearly communicated.

Some statements are difficult to understand, such as "Although researchers have not focused on the complex relationship among geospatial thinking, sense of place, and creativity. Existing research provides evidence for their potential relationship". I think the text needs a language correction.

The explanation of the main concepts does not seem clear. After reading the information you provided about the issues raised, I'm not entirely sure I know what we're talking about. I had to check with external sources the meaning of the topics discussed, which were not close to me.

I don't understand the information about geography lessons in the introduction. Later, when you present the method, this topic comes up again. I think it's worth explaining better what geography lessons mean for students and how they perceive a place. Is it that people who know the place better have greater sensitivity and understanding for the problems of a given space, which may stimulate them to propose positive changes?

In The Mediating Role of Creativity, the number of bibliographical references used makes it difficult to read (references 71-77). Maybe it would be better to combine them into one, or if it is not necessary - not to use them?

If age is a variable, is the difference in the number of women and men not a problem?

Your results are very interesting and I think that after making minor adjustments to make the text more readable for the audience, your paper will make a good substantive contribution.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer2:

Thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript, we appreciate all reviewers very much for their positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Geospatial Thinking and Sense of Place: The Mediating Role of Creativity” (Manuscript ID: sustainability-2079589). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. All the revisions have been addressed in the Reply followed and highlighted in the manuscript with yellow background. We hope the revised manuscript can be considered acceptable.

Reply to the comments of Reviewer 2

Comments:

It seems necessary to emphasize the importance of the subject for Sustainability. While it is understandable why the topics covered are important to Sustainability, this is not clearly communicated.

Reply:

Thank you for pointing out this problem in our manuscript. We have added relevant content to the introduction and implication (see line 35-36;55-56;436-439;443-448) to demonstrate that sense of place contributes to sustainable development of places.

Comments:

Some statements are difficult to understand, such as "Although researchers have not focused on the complex relationship among geospatial thinking, sense of place, and creativity. Existing research provides evidence for their potential relationship". I think the text needs a language correction.

Reply:

Thank you very much for your corrections to our manuscript. We have modified this sentence (see line 84-85) to avoid ambiguity.

Comments:

The explanation of the main concepts does not seem clear. After reading the information you provided about the issues raised, I'm not entirely sure I know what we're talking about. I had to check with external sources the meaning of the topics discussed, which were not close to me.

Reply:

Thank you for the above suggestion. We have added definitions in the introduction (see line 27;59-60;75-76) to explain clearly geospatial thinking, sense of place, and creativity.

Comments:

I don't understand the information about geography lessons in the introduction. Later, when you present the method, this topic comes up again. I think it's worth explaining better what geography lessons mean for students and how they perceive a place. Is it that people who know the place better have greater sensitivity and understanding for the problems of a given space, which may stimulate them to propose positive changes?

Reply:

Thank you very much for your corrections to our manuscript. We have added a discussion of this in the Introduce and Implications (see line 65-67;436-439;433-448) to demonstrate that geography education can enhance sense of place by developing students' geospatial thinking.

Comments:

In The Mediating Role of Creativity, the number of bibliographical references used makes it difficult to read (references 71-77). Maybe it would be better to combine them into one, or if it is not necessary - not to use them?

Reply:

Thank you for the above suggestion. We finally decided to remove references 71 and 72 to ensure reading fluency.

Comments:

If age is a variable, is the difference in the number of women and men not a problem?

Reply:

Thank you for pointing out this problem in our manuscript. The possible effects of differences between genders have been pointed out in this paper(see line 402-406).

Thanks again！

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors:

I would like to say that I very much appreciated your research as well as interesting manuscript.

Rew

Author Response

Dear Reviewer3:

Thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript, we appreciate all reviewers very much for their positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Geospatial Thinking and Sense of Place: The Mediating Role of Creativity” (Manuscript ID: sustainability-2079589). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. All the revisions have been addressed in the Reply followed and highlighted in the manuscript with yellow background. We hope the revised manuscript can be considered acceptable.

Reply to the comments of Reviewer 3

Comments:

would like to say that I very much appreciated your research as well as interesting manuscript.

Reply:

Thank you for your enjoyment !

Thanks again！

Reviewer 4 Report

Few points need revisions:

- "Therefore, in order to understand ways of developing... the mediating role of creativity" - Why do authors think this relation is so important? What do they want to add new to the literature? Explain better the aim of this paper.

- About the "Sense of Place", these historical paper are very related. Discuss them: --"Therefore, in order to understand ways of developing students' sense of place in ge- 85 ography education, we explore the relationship between geospatial thinking and sense of 86 place and the mediating role of creativity" doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0147216 -- doi: 10.1016/j.wneu.2015.06.041 --  doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0139509

- "For instance, both hu- 314 man cognition and emotion are influenced by the parietal cortex, an organ in the brain" Parietal cortex is part of the brain. Revise.

-  "5.2. Implications - The present study provides a novel direction in understanding... " Is this a conclusion or a results. It is not clear what is the role of this subsection at this point.

- What report in the Conclusion part is similar to what report in the introduction part. Revise conclusion part.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer4:

Thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript, we appreciate all reviewers very much for their positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Geospatial Thinking and Sense of Place: The Mediating Role of Creativity” (Manuscript ID: sustainability-2079589). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. All the revisions have been addressed in the Reply followed and highlighted in the manuscript with yellow background. We hope the revised manuscript can be considered acceptable.

Reply to the comments of Reviewer 4

Comments:

"Therefore, in order to understand ways of developing... the mediating role of creativity" - Why do authors think this relation is so important? What do they want to add new to the literature? Explain better the aim of this paper.

Reply:

We gratefully appreciate for your valuable suggestions. We have reinterpreted the purpose of this article(see line 95-104) to demonstrate why we examine the influence of geospatial thinking on the sense of place and the mediating role of creativity between the two.

Comments:

About the "Sense of Place", these historical papers are very related. Discuss them: --doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0147216 -- doi: 10.1016/j.wneu.2015.06.041 --  doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0139509

Reply:

We thank you for pointing out this issue. We have included these articles in the discussion (see line 413-415).

Comments:

"For instance, both human cognition and emotion are influenced by the parietal cortex, an organ in the brain" Parietal cortex is part of the brain. Revise.

Reply:

Thank you for pointing out this problem in our manuscript. We have corrected this error (see line 353).

Comments:

"5.2. Implications - The present study provides a novel direction in understanding... " Is this a conclusion or a result. It is not clear what is the role of this subsection at this point.

Reply:

Thank you very much for your corrections to our manuscript. In the implications, we reinforce the discussion of the practical implications of this study (see line 436-439;433-448) to guide how to achieve the development of sense of place based on geography education activities.

Comments:

What report in the Conclusion part is similar to what report in the introduction part. Revise conclusion part.

Reply:

Thank you for the above suggestion. We have modified the conclusions of this paper (see line 468-479) to illustrate the important results and practical implications of our research.

Thanks again!